EXECUTION IN E Page 16

  “Jared Ely’s life didn’t exactly turn out the way he’d planned, did it?” Frankie asked. “But I guess he was in no position to complain about your fabricated version of events.”

  “Frankie, please.”

  Frankie uncrumpled himself from the corner and leaned forward around the driver’s seat to speak to Gethsemane. “Would you please drop me at the Mad Rabbit then take Miss Cunningham back to her apartment? You can keep the car until tomorrow.”

  Verna pleaded. “Frankie, listen to me, please.”

  “What are you waiting for?” he asked Gethsemane. “Drive.”

  “Frankie.” Verna grabbed his arm.

  He shook her off. “Drive!” he shouted at Gethsemane. “Have you gone deaf? Drive. The. Damn. Car.”

  Gethsemane snapped her attention back to the vehicle and eased back onto the road.

  “Please, Frankie,” Verna said. “Let’s go back to your place. We can talk about this—”

  “Talk about what? Talk about how a bunch of ossified gits drove a man into the water and left him to drown? Talk about how they blamed the whole thing on him so his family would remember him as a drunken driver who nearly killed five people and was responsible for his own death? Is that what you want to talk about, Verna? Drop me at the Rabbit,” he said to Gethsemane.

  “Frankie, please.” Verna grabbed his arm again. “I need you.”

  Frankie pushed her away. “I need a drink.”

  Verna turned on Gethsemane. “This is your fault. You couldn’t leave it alone. You had to push and push and keep pushing, until—”

  “Shut yer gob.” Frankie snarled the words. “You lied to me, Verna. You lied to me. Me, the man you claimed you—” He turned away from her. “And now you’re blaming Sissy for your lies? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve had years of practice blaming your sins on others.”

  “Frankie…” Verna’s voice trailed off and she dissolved into tears.

  “Why don’t I take her to the Inn?” Gethsemane said. “Her sister can look after her. Then I’ll drive you home.”

  “Then you’ll drive me to the pub.”

  Gethsemane, for one of the few times in her life, did as she was told.

  She drove first to Sweeney’s Inn where the doorman helped extract a still-crying Verna from the back seat and promised to see she got to her sister’s room. Then she drove Frankie to the Mad Rabbit.

  “It’s four o’clock,” she looked at her watch, “five o’clock in the morning, Frankie. The pub doesn’t open until ten thirty. Let me take you home.”

  “Don’t worry, I have an in with the barman.”

  “Frankie, c’mon—”

  “Would you lay off? You’re not my wife and you’re not my ma. You’re—” He opened the rear passenger door. “Just let me out and drive away.”

  “All right, Frankie. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?” He climbed out of the car. “For not lying to me?” He slammed the door and stood watching, arms crossed, as she pulled away from the curb.

  She waited until she reached the end of the street to look back. Frankie leaned against the pub’s wall, head in hands. From the way his shoulders shook, she knew he was crying.

  Twenty-One

  “It’s all bollixed.” Gethsemane dumped a fourth spoonful of sugar into her coffee mug then slid the sugar bowl across the kitchen table.

  “May I dilute that syrup for you?” Eamon pointed at the coffee pot, which rose and tipped, steaming black liquid into the cup. “And I think you mean banjaxed.”

  “Bollixed, banjaxed, all effed up. Whatever. Frankie’s in tatters, which is not what I intended.” She rested her forehead on her hands.

  “He just found out his mot’s been lying to him more than not, she played an integral part in a drunk driving death, and she helped frame an innocent man, the victim, to protect that gobshite, Ty Lismore. What did you expect, that he’d dance a jig in the village square?”

  “Of course not. I knew he’d take it hard. Verna was the first woman since Yseult he’s been romantically involved with. But I didn’t think he’d start drinking again.” Frankie drank legendary amounts of alcohol when she first met him. He’d cut down in recent months, but now… “I wanted to help Frankie, not trigger his downfall.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself. He’s hardly lying plastered in the gutter. And being done up for a murder he didn’t commit for the second time in as many months wouldn’t do much for his mental well-being. From what you described, the Cunningham sisters were closing ranks and blood is thicker than whatever Verna felt for Grennan. They’d marked him for sacrifice. Now they’ve got someone else to shift suspicion to. You might want to warn Agnes to be wide.”

  “Maybe Agnes did it. Drugged Ty, I mean. Jared was her boyfriend.”

  “Whose loss she mourned by shagging the man who killed him. By the way, when are you going to share this information with the guards? Not that I’m a fan of helping them do their job, but it’s not like you to hold out this long. You don’t have to go to Sutton direct, you can tell O’Reilly and let him be the bearer of incriminating tidings.”

  “I know, I know. Concealing information about a potential crime is a crime. At least, I think it is over here. But I didn’t want to say anything to put the cross hairs on Frankie. I’ll tell Niall everything. Just as soon as I talk to Vivian about Agnes. Don’t look at me that way.”

  “What way? The ‘are you not the full shilling’ way? Or the ‘why in the name of all that’s holy would you tell Vivian the time of day’ way?”

  “You said it yourself, Irish. The Cunningham sisters won’t hesitate to point the finger at someone else to save themselves. I can’t trust Verna to bring up Agnes’s reason for hating Ty since it implicates her in a cover-up. But if I put a bug in Vivian’s ear, I bet she’ll think of a way to drop a hint. You should have seen her face light up earlier when I suggested others might have had motive to hasten his demise.”

  “You’re going to frame Agnes?” Eamon glowed a horrified aubergine.

  “No, I am not going to frame Agnes. Why would you say such a thing?”

  “Drop the indignation and listen to yourself. You all but admitted that you were going to suggest that suspect A—the one with means as well as motive, given she’s the only one with a prescription for the drug found in Lismore and she’s the only one you know for a fact had his flask in her possession, by the way—manufacture evidence to put the guards on the scent of suspect B—who was in a long-term relationship with Lismore and seemed genuinely traumatized by his death. What’s gotten into you, darlin’?”

  “Lack of sleep. Caffeine deficiency.” She crossed her arms on the table and lay her head down. “Utter desperation.” The fabric of her sleeve muffled her voice. “Some part of me still wants to salvage Frankie and Verna’s relationship.”

  “It’s not your job to salvage their relationship and, before you say anything, no, you did not submarine it. Verna did that when she chose to lie.”

  “But maybe they can repair things. People have survived rough patches. ‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’ So sayeth the Bard.”

  “Should you try to salvage a relationship with a murderer? Or an accessory to murder? Even if you accept Jared’s death as an accident, slipping amphetamines to a man who’s already on meds that tend to cause hallucinations, then luring him to the top of a lighthouse where a noose just happens to be ready and waiting, is murder. Even the disagreeable Inspector Sutton would agree with me on that. If he could see and hear me. Grennan and Verna may work things out. They may not. But withholding information from the gardaí isn’t going to help.”

  “All right, you win. Almost.”

  “Why do I not like the way that sounds?”

  “I promise I will call Niall—after I talk to Brian one more time.”

  “Bec
ause?”

  “Because he may be able to tell me if Agnes had the opportunity to grab some of Vivian’s dextroamphetamine tablets.”

  “And if she did, who do you think would have given her that opportunity? The man who’s riding the pills’ owner.”

  “Good point. I’ll try to talk to Theophilus. As far as I can tell, he’s not sleeping with anyone.”

  Sweeney’s lobby sat empty when Gethsemane arrived. A small sign at the front desk advised visitors, in elegant script, to “Ring for Service.” Gethsemane considered this a DIY mission, so she ignored the advice.

  She got as far as the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor.

  “Sissy.”

  Her heart leapt to her throat, blocking the curse word trying to make its way out. A few deep breaths assured her she still lived. Niall walked up behind her.

  “Jaysus, Niall, are you trying to put the heart crossways in me?”

  “Five points for decent use of Irish idiom. Minus ten points for planning to confront a murder suspect on your own and minus infinity for withholding information pertinent to an active garda investigation.”

  “Minus infinity doesn’t exist. How’d you know I was here?”

  “I got a text. Can’t tell who from.” He held his phone for her to see the jumble of numbers that appeared where the sender’s phone number usually displayed. “It’s not a working phone number. But the message, ‘Sissy,’ ‘snooping,’ ‘Sweeney’s,’ was enough for me to suss what you were up to. So I high-tailed it over here.”

  A text from a non-existent number? Had Eamon figured out how to communicate by smart phone? A lesson learned from his time trapped on an SD card? She’d heard reports of people receiving spectral texts, but—No time to worry about that now.

  “How long,” Niall asked, “am I going to have to wait for you to tell me what you’re—”

  “Whisht.” Gethsemane held a finger to her lips and pushed Niall around a corner as a door opened mid-hallway. Malcolm backed out of the room into the hall, followed by Vivian’s head and shoulders. He bent to kiss her.

  Gethsemane and Niall ducked out of sight as Malcolm broke the kiss and turned to go. When they poked their heads around the corner again, Malcolm had gone and the door had closed.

  “Didn’t expect that pairing,” Niall said. “Thought he had the glad eye for Sunny Markham.”

  “Malcolm manages Sunny like a lion tamer manages big cats in a Vegas show. No romance involved. But I’m surprised, too. I thought Vivian was with Brian. At least, she was yesterday. I caught him in her room.”

  “Maybe they were swapping recipes.”

  “Maybe I’ll be elected Queen of All That Surrounds Me tomorrow.”

  “Vivian’s a modern woman. Where’s your feminist spirit? You’re not turning into a prude, are you?”

  “No, I am not turning into a prude. I don’t care if Vivian is at it with two guys or ten. It’s not my business. Now that I think of it, she started panting after Malcolm the day he introduced himself in the pub and she noticed his tattoos.” Maybe her offer to help Mal carry his gear to the lighthouse had been more than an opportunity to snag Ty’s flask. Maybe grabbing the flask had been an added benefit. “I guess she wasn’t kidding about having a thing for ink. By the way, didn’t you fix dinner for Vivian a couple of weeks ago?”

  “I may have whipped up a little something once or twice.”

  “Do you have any tattoos?”

  Niall blushed. “One. A small one. A cat. Well-hidden.”

  Gethsemane suppressed a grin. “As long as a dinner or two doesn’t cloud your objectivity.”

  “Objectivity about what? You still haven’t told me anything.”

  “Here’s the one-hundred-forty-character version: Way back in the day, Ty did something, something terrible.” She hesitated.

  Niall frowned. “Go on.”

  “He drove Agnes’s boyfriend, Jared Ely, into a bayou and left him to drown.”

  “Murdered him, you mean.”

  “Displayed depraved indifference to human life, at a minimum.”

  “Giving Agnes excellent reason to want Ty dead.” Niall’s frown deepened. “But why wait ’til now to get even with him? ‘Back in the day’ is American for a helluva long time ago. So why now? Why here? Surely, Agnes had opportunity to do away with Ty before now.”

  “Because revenge is a dish best served cold?”

  “Only in the movies. Why seek revenge at all and risk spending the rest of her life in prison? Why not tell the police that Lismore murdered her boyfriend? I’m no expert on U.S. law, but I’m pretty sure a halfway competent prosecutor could make a murder charge stick to a man who left another to drown.”

  Gethsemane thought of some notorious cases where what seemed like a sure conviction turned into an acquittal. “People were in the vehicle with Ty. They helped him cover up what he did.”

  “Cover up what he did? Cover up his crime, you mean. Who helped him? You know, don’t you?”

  She nodded. “Agnes. Agnes helped Ty cover up her boyfriend’s death. She couldn’t go to the police.”

  “Brilliant.” Niall closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. “You said ‘some’ people. Who else was in the vehicle?”

  “Brian, Theo—” She couldn’t bring herself to add Verna to the list.

  Niall noticed her pause. “You’re holding something back.”

  “I am?’

  “Coy doesn’t become you. You’re no starry-eyed ingenue. I’ve known you long enough to know when you’re holding back. Who else was in the car?”

  “Before I answer, not telling the police about a death isn’t the same as murder, is it? Legally, I mean. If all you did was keep your mouth shut, is that a crime?”

  “You’re asking if lying to law enforcement is a crime.”

  “Isn’t not saying anything to the police akin to pleading the Fifth?”

  “That’s a question for a U.S. Constitutional law expert, not a lowly Irish garda.”

  “You’re not a lowly anything. Here’s an easier question. Let’s assume not telling the police about a murder you witnessed is a crime. It’s not murder, so there’s a statute of limitations, right? I mean, after a while, you wouldn’t be able to prosecute the person for not coming forward. Right?”

  “Probably not. And, to save you the trouble of asking, yes, something that happened in an American bayou would be out of my jurisdiction. I wouldn’t arrest anyone unless there was a warrant in the jurisdiction where the crime occurred and they asked us to detain the person. Which is a call someone much higher up the food chain than an Inspector would have to make.” He took off his hat and adjusted its band. He spoke without looking at Gethsemane, his voice a few decibels lower than it had been. “An Inspector could, however, make the decision to arrest someone within his jurisdiction for interfering with a Garda investigation.” He replaced his hat on his head and locked eyes with Gethsemane. “Am I wrong in guessing one of the people in that vehicle bears the initials V.C.?”

  Resistance was futile. “Verna. Verna was also in the vehicle.”

  “And the reason you didn’t want to tell me about her is because her involvement in Ty’s coverup implicates her in Ty’s death.” He leaned his face closer to Gethsemane’s, the brim of his hat grazing her forehead. “Give me the rest of it.”

  “Vivian takes dextroamphetamines for ADHD. I found a bottle of Vivian’s pills in Verna’s possession.” No need to mention Frankie’s bedroom. “I also caught Vivian with Ty’s flask.”

  “Shite, Sissy, when were you planning to share all this with Sutton?”

  “With Sutton? Three days after hell froze over. I planned to tell you the whole story right after I talked to Theo to find out if Agnes had any opportunity to swipe some of Vivian’s ADHD meds.”

  “To point suspicion away fro
m the Cunningham sisters toward Agnes. Why talk to Derringer, in particular?”

  “Because it occurred to me that Agnes’s best opportunity might have been Brian. He has—had—all-access to Vivian and her room. If he and Agnes were working together to avenge Jared’s death or get out from under Ty’s thumb or for any one of probably a dozen as-yet-unknown reasons to want Ty Lismore dead, he could have helped himself to enough amphetamines to send Ty, literally, over the edge.”

  “All right, we’ll chat with Derringer. Notice I said, ‘we,’ as in you and me together.”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to ask you to wait in the lobby.” She nodded toward the stairs. “Let’s go.”

  “That’s my line.”

  “Try to keep up.” She dashed up to the second-floor landing.

  “I can still arrest you, you know,” Niall said as he trotted up after her.

  “For what? I’m not interfering. Well, I am but you sanctioned it.”

  “For criminal smart-alecky-ness.”

  “Theo’s in two-fourteen, if I remember correct—” She stopped short.

  “What’s wrong?” Niall asked, narrowly avoiding colliding with her.

  “The door.” She pointed to the room she’d stopped in front of. The door stood ajar. “Two-oh-eight.”

  “Do you know whose room this is?”

  “No, but I think most of the wedding party is on this hallway.”

  Niall stepped in front of her and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Let me.”

  She matched his volume. “Why don’t I let you? Meanwhile, I’ll think of an excuse in case we barge in on a guy in the shower.”

  “I don’t hear water running. And in all the hotel rooms you stayed in during your travels and touring, how many doors did you forget to pull shut?”

  “None.” She crept after him.

  He stopped short, causing her to smash her nose against his back. “Will you wait until I’ve made sure—”